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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156364">Knock</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeChaosSpinner/pseuds/SomeChaosSpinner'>SomeChaosSpinner</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Gen, I actually did revise this! About three times, Maybe ivy/carmen sandiego, another self indulgent fic, we'll see</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:00:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,319</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156364</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeChaosSpinner/pseuds/SomeChaosSpinner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They were all trapped in this bitter cycle of hurt and broken promises. Of running out of luck, of turned backs and masks for faces. Of families that only lasted as long as debts were tracked and paid in full.<br/>This was a gesture, Carmen supposed, to break that cycle.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julia "Jules" Argent/Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Knock</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was unusually cool for a July evening. Carmen was glad for it, because the hallway that she crouched in had no air conditioning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had been here plenty of times, and, of course, someone must have made the correlation by now between her face and the face of the mysterious antihero who occasionally made headlines. ACME had done their best to keep her out of the news as she had set out to make sure ACME stayed gone in the past two years; but even they couldn’t keep everything from going public. The first few times she had snuck in, the scarlet superthief had been met with suspicious glares. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now, the elderly man who walked down the hallway looked right past her, as if she was no more than a painting on the yellowing wallpaper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was bizarre, how the way those around her regarded her had become just another part of Carmen's routine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carmen looked across the hallway, down to a single door. It was unremarkable, just another door with a number on it in a long row of numbered wooden doors. But, of course, knowing what was behind it had Carmen drawn in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But every time she showed up, sitting here for about an hour before losing her nerve and leaving, something tugged at her. Every time it became harder and harder to make her exit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her and Jules hadn’t talked, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> talked, in over two and a half years. Before she’d gotten mindwiped; before Jules had been captured by Countess Cleo. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Her fault.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Even now, Carmen’s stomach churned when she remembered how Julia had looked, out of options, at the mercy of The Cleaners and Countess Cleo. That smile when she had seen her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That same smile had shattered like glass, by her hand, only six months later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that was why it was so hard to open Julia’s door. Because if it happened a third time, if Julia was hurt </span>
  <em>
    <span>again </span>
  </em>
  <span>because of her… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carmen thought back to one of the many times she’d been leaving a crime scene before ACME- and her former crew- showed up. It was a night that she held fondly in her memory, not just because she’d finally managed to overpower Paperstar, but because of how </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy</span>
  </em>
  <span> Zack, Ivy, Jules, even Chase had looked to see her. As if they knew, </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that they had all the facts. That they were doing the right thing, maybe not always, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>in that moment.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She had called Ivy and Zack that night. Upon Carmen’s request, Player had given her their phone numbers the year previous, and she’d used them maybe three times before; the first being when she had cracked and reconnected after a vicious fight with Flytrap. But that night she had stayed on a little longer; listening to the redheads banter with her and between themselves, listening to how work was </span>
  <em>
    <span>awful</span>
  </em>
  <span> and they sometimes wished they could go back to being thieves. At some point, Ivy had asked about Carmen’s mother. Carmen had replied that she wasn’t living with her, but they checked in often. Vera Cruz was unaware of Dexter’s- or her- profession, former or current, but otherwise, Carmen tried to stay… somewhat open around her life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the conversation had turned to Jules. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t intentional on Carmen’s part. Ivy had arrived at the end of a story where Chase had gotten into a heated argument with Zari about who should drive. Then she had looked as though a thought was occurring to her, a grin spreading across her face. Carmen had asked her what was so funny, and Ivy had replied, “You haven’t said much about your </span>
  <em>
    <span>favorite ACME agent</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Face suddenly burning, Carmen had replied, “She’s happy, isn’t she? That's all I need to know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t avoid her forever.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“I’m not avoiding her. She doesn't want to talk to me after Poitiers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still smirking, Ivy had responded, “I… </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>get that impression from her.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Carmen had laughed, pretending to be embarrassed and allowed the call to continue, dodging the subject until Ivy had received the hint and changed it. After Carmen had wished the two good night, she had sighed, flopped down onto the bed of her hotel room, and mumbled to no one in particular, “She certainly wasn’t happy when I last saw her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>scared. The fuzzy memories of the six long months as an unwilling and unaware agent of VILE had long faded into occasional nightmares. but there was still something reminding her she’d </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt </span>
  </em>
  <span>people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carmen didn’t remember much from the six months. The perspective of her memories was as if watching herself in a vivid dream, the kind where someone is a passenger in their own body. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she did remember the </span>
  <em>
    <span>faces</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d hurt people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d hurt her crew, and her family, and her friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe allowing herself to talk to Jules, to begin to consider throwing down roots, was hard because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. An ugly, evil, green-and-black elephant looming in a corner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t just stay a thief forever, Carm,” Ivy had told her the night when Carmen had first rung the twins up. There was a bit of concern in her voice that she did her best to hide. “I mean, look how it turned out for your teachers. You need to do other things with your life, sometime.” A pause, then hopefully: “ACME pays well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Carmen had nodded and said she’d think about it, and then she’d thought about it, and decided it was a bad idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother thought the same thing; of what she knew about Carmen’s life. Vera Cruz thought that Carmen traveled for work, which, while technically true, was a far less intense narrative than what was happening behind the scenes. Still, her mom’s hints that she should let go of the past and try to build a future for herself had gone from subtle to casually confrontational the last time they talked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carmen hadn’t told her about Jules. She was pretty sure she had mumbled something, dizzy from a bruised rib or two after a nasty fight with Spinkick (the name was fitting), about a woman she wasn’t quite sure still wanted to talk to her, that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to talk to, and her mother had paused, pursed her lips, and asked how they’d met. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She just… </span>
  <em>
    <span>hated</span>
  </em>
  <span> Julia being a loose end. In VILE, loose ends were </span>
  <em>
    <span>bad.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Weak. They needed to be tied up, or removed entirely from the equation if that wasn’t an option.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With her former teachers and most of her former classmates locked up, those with unsolved troubles rarely found themselves subject to the whims of the faculty anymore. Still, the idea that she could just… </span>
  <em>
    <span>leave</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jules, after everything that had happened, and never talk to her again, never get to… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made her gut churn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You should talk to her</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Player had told her once, after most of her memories had come back. Including when she had… “</span>
  <em>
    <span>She does ask about you.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was similar to her father, her mother had pointed out. Secretive. Not knowing when to quit. Carmen didn’t want to look that in the eye, and find that may be true.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>VILE entangles whatever it touches. In a net of </span>
  </em>
  <span>trust me </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span> welcome to the family</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gray. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dexter Wolfe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had no sympathy for VILE’s operatives, but she supposed… them too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were all trapped in this bitter cycle of hurt and broken promises. Of running out of luck, of turned backs and masks for faces. Of families that only lasted as long as debts were tracked and paid in full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carmen looked at the door again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a deep breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t have to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Did she want to?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stood up.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Carmen knocked.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'jm going to update this I promise</p></blockquote></div></div>
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